In the past two decades, Mexico has made very impressive progress in providing electricity to its citizens, especially those living in rural areas. The 87.5% of Mexicans that had electricity in 1990 lived mostly in cities and towns. Many of the 95.0% that had electricity in 2000 lived in rural areas. The proportion without electricity was cut way down to only 1.8% by 2010.
During the past decade, virtually all those who obtained electricity for the first time lived in rural areas. The gains in some states were very impressive. The proportion without electricity in Oaxaca went from 13% in 2000 to 5% in 2010. In San Luis Potosí and Chiapas it fell from 12% to only 4%. In Veracruz it dropped from 11% to just 3% and in Tabasco it went from 5.8% to only 1.2%.
Postage stamp commemorating the nationalization of Mexico's electricity industry
The states with the highest proportion without electricity in 2010 were Oaxaca (4.93%), Guerrero (4.38%) and Durango (4.19%). At the other end, were the Federal District (0.08%), Nuevo León (0.30%), Coahuila (0.54%) and Colima (0.59%).
Mexico may never be able to provide electricity to 100% of its citizens, since there are too many people living in very remote areas. In about 8% of municipalities (199 of 2456), more than 10% of the people lack electricity. Of these 199 municipalities, 81 are in Oaxaca, which has 570 municipalities, far more than any other state. Many of the other poorly serviced municipalities are in the relatively poor southern states of Guerrero (15), Veracruz (12), Chiapas (9), Puebla (7) and Michoacán (7).
A surprisingly number of these 199 municipalities are in two northern states: Chihuahua with 16 and Durango with 9. In fact, in 14 Chihuahua municipalities, over 25% of the population lack electricity and in 5 of these over 50% do not have electricity. In Durango the situation is only slightly better: in four municipalities over 25% lack electricity and in one of these 66% do not have electricity. These are among the worst-serviced communities in all of Mexico. In the whole country there are only 9 municipalities where over half the residents do not have electricity and 6 of these 9 are in Chihuahua or Durango. These very poorly-serviced areas are sparsely populated municipalities near the Copper Canyon, occupied mostly by the Tarahumara indigenous group.
Though there are sizable pockets of Mexicans that do have electricity, it is very impressive that, as of 2010, over 98% had access to power.
Source for data:
CONAPO, “Índice de marginación por entidad federativa y municipio. 2010” México D.F., October 2011.
Related posts:
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.